One of my favorite nieces and her son will be joining us for dinner tonight. On the way to grocery shopping today, Elegante Mother suggested that the next time my niece came to visit we should plan a different meal. It seems that we’ve done the same meal for them for the last several visits! I hadn’t realized. I’ll have to ask her what she has a taste for next time.
Tonight we’ll be having medium rare flank steak with broiled steak seasoning, lemon pepper and garlic salt, huge baking potatoes (and I’ll put out sour cream, butter, bacon bits and shredded cheddar cheese for those who want them), steamed cauliflower with browned bread crumbs and sliced green onions, roasted asparagus with Kosher salt and minced dry onion, Caesar salad, strawberries, and maybe chocolate cupcakes.
We rarely eat this way at home. Normally, I offer a much more trimmed down meal, with fewer condiments, and simpler veggies, but we seem to go all out for my niece and her boys. We’ll be hosting Easter in a couple of weeks. The preparation for tonight’s meal is similar to what we do for Easter, Of course, those who come to have Easter dinner with us will bring dishes to pass. Dear Husband and I will do all the cooking tonight. He cooks the flank steak and makes the Caesar salad. I clean the romaine, cook the cauliflower, roast the asparagus, clean and slice the strawberries, make the cupcakes, and clean the kitchen.
Hopefully, a good time will be had by all, and I’ll go back to lighter meals for the end of the week.

We’ve had several record-breaking warm days. I stalled on getting our spring cleanup started, and now I regret it. This afternoon our temps are going to drop from the 80s to the 40s as a cold front moves south over the Chicago area. It’s bringing showers that will come and go throughout the rest of the week. I can expect the ground to remain boggy.
On the other hand….. the squill and crocus are blooming, and some of the daffodils have opened. I’ve seen robins, and gold finches and house finches. The chives are easily six inches tall, and there are tulip leaves, day lilies, oregano, feverfew and one more plant that I can’t identify turning green in the herb garden. The honeysuckle along the lot lines and tree lines is leafing out. I think I may need to uncover the rose bushes before Easter.
We are all ready for a gradual warming that will lead to spring. None of us are completely happy about the yo-yo temperatures. We’d feel better if we could acclimate gradually, rather than being thrown into Summer with no preparation. Our climate is surely odd these days.

We started our day in a very light rain. I thought perhaps that Elegante Mother would refuse to go to exercise, but she went, without complaint. I like almost all of the music this session, which makes exercise easier. But, today we discovered that our exercise guru is capable of extending the songs digitally, and we’re working a little harder than we were a few weeks ago.
Our guru, “Gentle Dragon,” has been focusing on hip exercises the past couple of months, and I must need these exercises, because my hips have been aching. It’s not bad enough to do anything about it; I can control it with regular doses of Ibuprofen.I know that in the long run, this is good for me, so I try to make it to class. I thought I was going to miss on Friday, but the dentist rescheduled my appointment, so I’ll get to exercise.
I was sitting in the “green room,” the room off the kitchen that holds the plants and the casual dining table, having toast, and there was a flash of light. I wondered if it had something to do with my eye problem, but about 15 seconds later there was one LARGE boom of thunder! Just one. It seems that most of the daytime thunderstorms went north of us.
We had about an hour of lovely sunlight before the clouds closed in again. We’re supposed to have thunderstorms tonight.
The two retention ponds immediately to the east of us have been very poorly designed. They were fine when there were no houses, but the contractor who owned the land, clear cut it, dredged out more lake area and then connected those lakes to these two retention ponds, and covered it with houses and apartments. I think it’s all supposed to drain out the southern most pond. BUT….they underestimated the amount of flow.
A year later, they came back and increased the size of the lake. I still don’t think they have estimated the flow correctly, because we have been in drought since the houses were built.
I’m taking bets. I think by Friday those two lakes will become one, and our road will be under water. If it happens….I’ll have pictures!
Happy Spring, all! Enjoy the warmer weather!

At 6:28 this morning, you could see you hand in front of your face. By 6:48 the sky was light. Unfortunately, Dear Husband was off to work at 5:30. Poor man. He must feel like a mushroom!
Bird song. Chit Chat. Bur-DEE Bur-DEE Bur-DEE! The birds are so ready for Spring that they are talking it in! We’ve missed their chatter during the winter, but now they’re making such a racket that you can’t miss them.
Elegante Mother’s Empty Nester sewing circle from church is meeting here this afternoon. EM bought a sinfully rich chocolate dessert and will offer Earl Grey in porcelain cups to go with it. I’ve been up since 5:00 putting the house to rights, putting quilts away, doing a few loads of laundry, getting the table organized for the crafters and faxing off tax information.
I think I’ve developed Conjunctivitis. I have a doctor’s visit later this morning to confirm my guess and get some treatment. As I recall, no shared towels, lots of hand washing, and maybe, eye drops. I wonder where this came from??
Crocus are in bloom, and daffodils, oriental poppies, day lilies, chrysanthemum, iris and chives all show growth. Dear Husband and I moved the plants I wintered over in the garage to the edges of the sidewalk Sunday afternoon. You should see the growth on the Seedum ‘Autumn Joy’!! And, of course, the mint is showing new growth!
We saw our first robin yesterday, March 19th. One of the ladies at exercise reported that she had seen TEN on her lawn, a couple of weeks ago when there was a particularly bad cold snap. Robins eat worms. How do the survive when the soil is frozen and the worms are hibernating?
Okay, it’s time to get cleaned up to visit the doc. I hope you all have a great day!

It doesn’t take much of a change in weather to make us happy campers. Yesterday and today it was still coat weather, but hardy souls could have made due with a jacket rather than a long coat and woollies.
We had so much sun this weekend that most of our snow cover has melted off. We know better than to be running out on the lawn and tossing a few footballs, because the lawn is not completely defrosted, and we have a lot of mud waiting to trip up anyone who’s not wary. It will be a couple of weeks until we can safely walk out there because we have more rain on the way.
Today, as we left the house, I saw two hyacinth bulbs pushing up through the dirt in the sidewalk garden. And, there’s a line of daffodils marching across the front of the house that is about three inches out of the ground. Soon we should see crocus blooms!
I had this terrible urge to go out and clean up the gardens. I ignored it, and worked on a quilt top, instead. I want to get the Halloween quilt finished and sent off to be quilted. There will be time to play in the gardens soon! *G*

We had the most interesting day yesterday. My youngest sister was visiting and she joined us for a Red Hat Lady’s luncheon. They welcomed her warmly and asked where she lived and worked, and then the conversation was off and running. We had lunch at “The Claddagh” as a tip of the hat to St. Paddy’s Day. I had a great corned beef and coleslaw variation on a Reuben. While we were out, we visited Trader Joe’s and Crate and Barrel. Nan egged me on to make a major dish purchase, while she walked out of the store empty-handed!
We made it home a little after 3:00 and then Dear Husband and I drove into Chicago to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I’d given DH tickets for Christmas to hear Sir Alfred Brendel perform Mozart. It was the first time we’d been there since they have remodeled the facility. It’s a beautiful bon-bon in cream, taupe, silver and gold. It just shimmers, and has great sight and sound lines.
We heard Haydn’s Symphony No. 93 in D Major, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K.453, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67. We arrived more than 30 minutes early, and had main-floor seats on the aisle. Rather than get up and down ten times, we spent part of the time standing until the aisle filled. The staff is energetic in getting everyone seated so that the performance can begin on time. We were interested to see the layout change for each performance.
Roberto Abbado was conducting, and he chose to have the basses and first violins to his left, the second violins and violas to his right and the cellos in the center, second row. The woodwinds were behind the cellos and the brass were off to the right, and slightly higher on the risers. There was one lone percussionist, a tympanist.
I thought they were going to have to roll in the piano for Sir Alfred, but we were surprised to see it rise from the pit. Beethoven’s symphony required more performers than the Haydn and Mozart, so there was an intermission before the last selection, so they could get everything moved in place.
The first flute, first oboe, first clarinet and first bassoon of the CSO create a beautiful core of sound for selections like these. Where the musical line moves from one to the next, the trade off is faultless, and the tone quality so perfect that it sounds as though one instrument is playing the line. I closed my eyes to listen just to focus on the incredible sound. It was a wonderful evening, one which we need to do again, soon!
We came home to change our clocks forward, and slept fast. Elegante Mother wanted to go to early church, and then we had breakfast at a great Cajun place, before Nan started the drive home. When you factor in the warm weather, Nan’s presence, and the enjoyable activities, this has to be one of the best weekends we’ve had all winter. Let’s do it again, SOON!

I was carded yesterday. That hasn’t happened in more than twenty years.
I was at Office M@x yesterday to buy cans of compressed gas. I use them to clean out my keyboards. Number-Three-Son was coming to work on the computers, so I needed to clean out the cat fur.
At check out, the clerk asked me for my identification. I handed it over. He muttered something about a birth date, and I finally realized that he was carding me for age. It seems the company had just instituted a requirement that purchasers of compressed gas dusters needed to be a certain age. I don’t know just what age. I muttered (loudly) that I was OLD ENOUGH! He finally got the computer running the cash register to agree.
I picked up one of the cans just now to be sure I had the product name right, and on the label it says “Contains a bitterant to help discourage inhalant abuse.” Good God. What the heck are kids doing with this stuff? It’s not like it’s going to make you talk like Donald Duck!
And, what the heck is a “bitterant”? Does that sound like a made up word to you? (As far as www.dictionary.com is concerned, it isn’t a word. Some PR person probably came up with that to save room on the label.)

Yesterday, I made the trek to Elmhurst to my dermatologist. This doctor is so special that Elegante Mother and I followed her when she moved her practice. It’s a pleasure to see her, and in return, she takes care of my skin woes.
We visited for my annual body check in February just before I left for Florida. She said there was a precancerous spot on my nose that needed to be treated (one I hadn’t even realized was there), but she’d do it when we got back. So, I dutifully made and kept the appointment. When she was done yesterday, I had FOUR treated spots: two on my face and one at each wrist. Unfortunately, they may not be totally healed by the time I give my quilt presentation, but I’m sure the ladies will cope with it.
Dear Husband was referred to a dermatologist for the same kind of treatment on his nose last week. He’d had a spot for about a year, that was so understated that I didn’t even think about it. Our poor little noses are not quite twins.
Dermatology is big business with all the missing ozone. I think that more people will be adding a dermatologist to the list of their health providers, just to keep track of all the types of skin cancers that are developing. I wear long sleeves and long pants when I garden, and floppy hats. I try to remember to wear sun-screen, and I try to work early in the day when the sun’s rays are not directly overhead. What gets past me, Doc will zap. OUCH!!

(croaking…) I need MORE SLEEP!
I sent out a call to Number-Three-Son on Monday. We have a new all-in-one machine in the office and Dear Husband was having some difficulties getting it hooked up correctly. The missing connection was the one to the computer, so I wasn’t able to print anything from the living room computer, and, the fax portion of the machine wasn’t cooperating.
NTS said that he could come on Tuesday but he couldn’t make it until 6:30 or so. Both he and his wife came. I fixed dinner, and then he had a go at our problems. He reorganized the connections, installed a wireless mouse for me in the office, and then upgraded and did some troubleshooting. I think he was pleasantly surprised to find that there was virtually nothing to do on the personal computer. I’d run the Spybot program, AdAware and Norton, and defragged, recently.
All this took about three and a half hours. By 11:00 I was overtaken by jaw-popping yawns, and an intense longing for my bed. We’d sent Dear Husband off to bed around 10:00 because he has such an early morning call during the week. I didn’t complain, because NTS’s help with the computers is so necessary. We’re lucky to have a kid willing to keep us up and running.
Number-Two-Son came home and chatted with the others for a bit. I had to work hard not to edge them toward the door, thinking longingly of my bed….but I managed to hold back. Really! I was GLAD to have them there! I swear!
I have been short on sleep for the past few months, and I am one of those people who needs at least eight hours a night, if not a little bit more. I get up early and get my day started, but if I haven’t had enough sleep, especially if I’ve been short on sleep for several days in a row, I get to the middle of the day and crash.
I came into the office and worked for a few minutes around 11:30 this morning, and thought I’d tilt back and rest my eyes….just for a moment! Every now and then, I could hear myself snore. (Pretty picture, hmmmmmmm??? At least I wasn’t drooling.) It was enough to disturb the sleep I was getting, but not quite enough to wake me for the afternoon. When I finally bolted upright in my chair, my hands were frozen. I must have been sitting just right to cut down on the circulation to my arms.
I’m improving on getting up earlier in the morning. 5:15 doesn’t seem quite so wretched to me now, but I need to work on getting to bed earlier. I want my eight hours a day of snooze time back! I want to snuggle under the quilts, and gather my strength to meet the day, so that I’m ready to meet the needs of gardening season. Now I know why my parents felt it was inappropriate for phone calls to come in after nine at night, unless there was an emergency. THEY NEEDED THEIR SLEEP! And so do I.

I’m longing for crocus blooms, balmy breezes, sunshine on my skin and the chance to burn my winter coat.
I want to see leaves starting to bud out, and the magnolia blooms start to swell.
I want to play in my gardens, and be able to hop in the car to run an errand without having to put on 15 pounds of specialized clothing!
I want to be able to ride my bike down the drive without bogging down in the mud.
I want to be able to serve salad as the main course for dinner.
I want to taste a tomato that doesn’t taste like cardboard.
My apologies for whining publicly. Usually I can deal with the wait, but this year it just seems a bit more difficult. I’ll keep my head down, and work at my sewing machine for the next week or so, and maybe there will be a change when I get back to the window.